Please wait...
Thu Apr 22 2021 22:40:33 MST from ParanoidDelusions <paranoiddelusions@wallofhate.com>I figured it had to be available. VLC did do the trick for me.
I forgot what I was attempting. I think I wanted music on my Vampire V4.
Thu Apr 22 2021 21:40:38 MST from ASCII Expressffmpeg should do it.
$ ffmpeg -i <input_file.m4a> -o <output_file.mp3>
VLC can do anything. It's incredible.
I always forget about it, then rediscover it, and wonder why I ever forgot about it.
My son is taking a coding camp for Python using my Raspberry Pi! I'm so thrilled for him to get a decent computer experience to contrast with the Use Windows For School boring nonsense he's used to.
I've got mixed emotions about the RPi4.
It is actually the legacy of the Timex Sinclair. It is the cheap all in one computer that basically takes away any parental excuse for "I couldn't afford it."
The Timex Sinclair was $99 at Payless in 1980.
The Rpi4 is $115 mail order *today*. Adjusted for inflation, that is like what - twenty fucking bucks?
For a quad-core ARM processor. That is some relatively crazy scale there.
And that is *great*.
But... there are other things about ARM and the FOSS/Linux ecosystem I dislike a *great* deal. It is aligned with all the things that are *wrong*.
Sat May 08 2021 00:33:18 MST from Wangiss <wangiss@wallofhate.com>My son is taking a coding camp for Python using my Raspberry Pi! I'm so thrilled for him to get a decent computer experience to contrast with the Use Windows For School boring nonsense he's used to.
Sun May 09 2021 19:00:08 MST from ParanoidDelusions <paranoiddelusions@wallofhate.com>But... there are other things about ARM and the FOSS/Linux ecosystem I dislike a *great* deal. It is aligned with all the things that are *wrong*.
Like what? I've never used one but I adore linux.
The community itself tends to be very *left* Libertarian. There is a lot of collectivist theory driving the FOSS community. Lots of ideas about social, economic and ethnic "equity".
There is a lot of Western European white arrogance and pretentiousness in a bunch of beareded eggheads writing:
"Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning 'humanity to others'. It also means 'I am what I am because of who we all are'. "
Anti-capitalism is rank in the Linux community - as is suspicion that everything *evil* comes from *capitalism*...
When the most evil things in technology today are *all* built on...
FUCKING *LINUX*.
The big one among Linux users right now is about "wasted cycles on intel and AMD cores and their global contribution to global warming - which is why we should all switch to ARM, which is more ecologically efficient..."
STFU - dude. Switching from Intel to Arm is like switching from internal combustion automobiles to electric cars - a big circle jerk that has a minimal impact if any - and isn't "a positive step," but just you virtue signaling that you're "superior," when the truth is you would probably JUMP on a core i9 running Windows with an Occulus Rift VR system if you weren't an underpaid Linux Data-farm cloud engineer who can barely afford his early 2000's Honda Civic with faded paint.
And the hypocrisy of how the Linux community denies this only makes it worse.
Added to that is the *Evangelical* witnessing about the Temple of Linux to all non-believes - like God-Damned JWs or Bible Thumping Evangelicals or fucking ATHEISTS.
If someone swears by Linux - you're going to hear about it. Mac users are content just to quietly feel smugly superior to you, content in the fact that you're not evolved enough to understand why a Mac is better, or you would have one ALREADY.
The Linux guy often wants to convince you that you can replace your entire datacenter with a single Pi 400+ running Raspberry OS - and won't shut up until you hear him out - and will get insulting if you point out why it isn't possible.
All of these things have been problems with Linux since the start - and although Linux has improved as an OS since then - these things have frequently just gotten *worse*.
/rant
Wed May 12 2021 19:39:39 MST from TheDave
Sun May 09 2021 19:00:08 MST from ParanoidDelusions <paranoiddelusions@wallofhate.com>But... there are other things about ARM and the FOSS/Linux ecosystem I dislike a *great* deal. It is aligned with all the things that are *wrong*.
Like what? I've never used one but I adore linux.
Wed May 12 2021 21:14:58 MST from ParanoidDelusions <paranoiddelusions@wallofhate.com>The Linux guy often wants to convince you that you can replace your entire datacenter with a single Pi 400+ running Raspberry OS - and won't shut up until you hear him out - and will get insulting if you point out why it isn't possible.
I mean, you could, but you shouldn't. While I do adore linux and I don't mined the left libertarian ethos when it comes to software, a lot of them don't realize that IP isn't the same as real property and economics exists lol
But then that's usually my beef with people, they're always ignoring the economics argument.
I think what drives me nuts are the
"I set up my <technology ignorant relative> with Linux and they never looked back..."
Yeah... but don't lie - you provide free unlimited technical support and provide complex fixes, workarounds and other solutions every time they go, "it can't do THIS that my Winderz or Appul muchene does!"
Don't lie. I know. I've tried to move technology ignorant relatives to Linux any number of times - and it always, eventually fails and they go back to something easier to deal with - or I get sick of fixing things that are WAY TOO COMPLEX to set up on Linux - like simple cut and paste images into a browser.
You have to either have someone very technical supporting you to run Linux, or be very technically competent yourself. Bottom line - inarguable. Ubuntu and other distros have made it *easier* - and more and more frequent support for big name apps on Linux has helped too - and the fact that most things are accessed through the browser now also helps. It is *less* important for a lot of people.
But - Linux still will bite you in ways that OS X and Windows won't.
And the Linux acolytes *know* this is true - and they just ignore it, or lie about it.
Sat May 15 2021 10:18:35 MST from TheDave
Wed May 12 2021 21:14:58 MST from ParanoidDelusions <paranoiddelusions@wallofhate.com>The Linux guy often wants to convince you that you can replace your entire datacenter with a single Pi 400+ running Raspberry OS - and won't shut up until you hear him out - and will get insulting if you point out why it isn't possible.
I mean, you could, but you shouldn't. While I do adore linux and I don't mined the left libertarian ethos when it comes to software, a lot of them don't realize that IP isn't the same as real property and economics exists lol
But then that's usually my beef with people, they're always ignoring the economics argument.
Yeah. Just had to load software to take a screenshot. Pluses and minuses.
For sure. Linux itself does some things great. Just - what I'm doing here - with a full enterprise Virtualized engine and full featured groupware with e-mail - I mean - insanely better than the Windows platform licensing fees you would pay for anything comparable.
A little less polish - but a helluva lot more bang for your buck.
Fri May 21 2021 23:36:32 MST from Wangiss <wangiss@wallofhate.com>Yeah. Just had to load software to take a screenshot. Pluses and minuses.
Well, it looks like I'll be using both. I finally got enough computer pieces to stick together and was able to fire up my new Windows desktop today! I can't wait to make it talk to my Pi and get all my fun home automation going.
Anybody have a spare Windows 10 key lying around?
Hilariously, one of my old tech buddies called me recently because he was specifically in need of a spare Windows 7 *home* key, and as an IT pro, he only had a Win 7 PRO key... he needed it to do the free upgrade to a Win 10 home key.
So, what you need is a Win 7, Win 8, or Win 10 key, home or pro, depending on what you want to upgrade to.
Any of those will get you in free - with the advantage being that a working Win 7 or 8 key will make you legitimate once the Win 10 activation grants you an official Microsoft key.
Mon May 24 2021 01:24:34 MST from Wangiss <wangiss@wallofhate.com>Well, it looks like I'll be using both. I finally got enough computer pieces to stick together and was able to fire up my new Windows desktop today! I can't wait to make it talk to my Pi and get all my fun home automation going.
Anybody have a spare Windows 10 key lying around?
So... here is another thing about the Linux community. They're sadists and masochists.
I understand that there are legitimate points to the Linux perspective that a production server doesn't need, and shouldn't have, a GUI interface - that it gives a broader attack vector footprint and introduces more insecurity, that it becomes a crutch that allows less skilled admins to do things that would be beyond their capabilities otherwise, while also making them lazy so that they fail to learn how to do it from the command line.
All true. But - it also makes a lot of routine, mundane administration tasks excessively time consuming and difficult - requiring a ton of research to get the smallest thing done. Enabling Telnet goes from hitting a button for on/off in a control panel to figuring out how to enable an account for su/sudo, learning vi or some other ancient text editor, finding out which file launches Telnet, and learning what a ton of commands do just to be able to write a configuration line that does what you want.
I've been doing all kinds of things the "Linux admin" way for the last couple of years - because I didn't want to set up VNC and configure Gnome to work with it (which is, by all accounts, something of a bitch).
I *can* do that. But... with Proxmox, I have a built in VNC management console to any box I build as a VM - and I can isolate that management console only to the internal NIC so I am very secure that it is not accessible from the public network - and that means I can work far more frequently in the GUI. I can load up my tools there for web editing, edit the pages on the server, then copy them to the www folder and they're instantly published - as opposed to editing them on a Windows machine, SFTPing them over, copying them, and hoping all the paths work right. It saves me time. I wouldn't allow it on a production machine or a corporate network - but there might be exceptions to that. It is good that this CAN be achieved - it is a bummer that it is so much more difficult to achieve and *so* discouraged by senior Linux admin types.
I think Microsoft has found a much better middle ground, and so has OS X - between least permissive and least restrictive models - with both adopting models that generally default to something in the middle and allow you to fine tune either way depending on your needs.
Heck - even BMW gets this. You can set your defaults to "every safety, comfort and economy feature possible" and turn your M into a grocery getting suburban family car... or you can set it to full track mode by default - or somewhere in between.
But the features are all there. It is up to the end user to decide what best suits them - and turning them on or off is easy and accessible. You don't need to take a BMW engineering class or read 10,000 forum pages to figure out how to do it - getting told to RTFM every time by some autobahn neckbeard.
I was planning to design a website theme for a dev studio owned by a friend of mine. They wanted me to push my fork to github through their VPN with their native Linux setup.
I wanted to teach them that they have to learn to play well with others. Juche doesn't work on the Internet.
What is Juche? I do not know this word.
Tue Jun 01 2021 13:20:07 MST from Wangiss <wangiss@wallofhate.com>I was planning to design a website theme for a dev studio owned by a friend of mine. They wanted me to push my fork to github through their VPN with their native Linux setup.
I wanted to teach them that they have to learn to play well with others. Juche doesn't work on the Internet.
Juche is the name of the post-communist political philosophy of North Korea. It means self-sufficiency, in a sense. They claim that their utopia is so perfect that outside interference is unnecessary and/or disruptive. The money they take from China is a goodwill gesture to help the Chinese feel important.
Wed Jun 02 2021 18:07:13 MST from ParanoidDelusions <paranoiddelusions@wallofhate.com>What is Juche? I do not know this word.
Tue Jun 01 2021 13:20:07 MST from Wangiss <wangiss@wallofhate.com>I was planning to design a website theme for a dev studio owned by a friend of mine. They wanted me to push my fork to github through their VPN with their native Linux setup.
I wanted to teach them that they have to learn to play well with others. Juche doesn't work on the Internet.
That is very charitable of them. If any of the members of The Sanitarium need to feel important, we will happily practice juche for their benefit. PM me and I'll let you know where you can send checks and wire transfers to.
Sun Jun 06 2021 15:41:04 MST from Wangiss <wangiss@wallofhate.com>Juche is the name of the post-communist political philosophy of North Korea. It means self-sufficiency, in a sense. They claim that their utopia is so perfect that outside interference is unnecessary and/or disruptive. The money they take from China is a goodwill gesture to help the Chinese feel important.
Wed Jun 02 2021 18:07:13 MST from ParanoidDelusions <paranoiddelusions@wallofhate.com>What is Juche? I do not know this word.
Tue Jun 01 2021 13:20:07 MST from Wangiss <wangiss@wallofhate.com>I was planning to design a website theme for a dev studio owned by a friend of mine. They wanted me to push my fork to github through their VPN with their native Linux setup.
I wanted to teach them that they have to learn to play well with others. Juche doesn't work on the Internet.
Generally speaking. Being insecure can lead to inconvenient experiences, though. ;)
(and that tends to be true even if you read that with its dual meaning).
Tue Jun 08 2021 15:50:15 MST from TheDaveSecurity and Convenience have an inverse relationship.